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Sunday, 7 April 2013

Rainbow Quilt... Part IV... Complete!

It's finished and I am proud to show you the last stage of the
making of my Rainbow Quilt!

First off, after
finishing the formation of the quilt, I used my organic cotton batting and some
REALLY fluffy (not organic) wadding. I created a batting-wadding-batting
sandwich and then placed my front and back onto the sarnie. At this point I
would just like to confirm that buying organic is really worth the extra cash,
its luxurious and chemical free. I just couldn't source any organic wadding
that would arrive in time, so I used some standard wadding from my local (and
only) fabric shop I have available to me here in the West of Ireland.

When I had pinned
everything together... I made, by hand, my own bias tape. I wanted to make 60mm
bias tape, no bias tape maker goes up to that size, so I sat and made my own.
Firstly I cut 12 cm strips, ironed them in half and then, like folding a
letter... I pinned the bias together. Ironing as I went. It took some time and
was a pain to do, but this is exactly the size I wanted- so worth it,
ultimately.

I then pinned as I
went, bevelling at the corners as I went. This bevelling wasn't as bad as I had
dreaded and really looked the part, proper quilting techniques on show...

Then, with a deep
intake of breath, I sewed it all together, ensuring that underneath of the bias
tape was being caught as I went, which it was... yay.

I struggled with
the tension of my Toyota; it seems to decide to change the tension randomly as
I went along. I stopped, unpicked and re-sewed, however it did it again. In the
end, I went with the flow of the tension changes and promised myself that when
I get a new machine, I will go back and sort this out. It's actually not that
bad at all; I just can't get it perfect which I always strive for.

So here we are...
this is my finished quilt! I am so happy with the finished size, colours and
how the Klona Tan bias tape (and I also used this for the backing) has
complimented the white and every shade of the spectrum of this quilt.

The finished
measurements are 110cm x 110 cm. Little lady can happily be crawling on,
dribbling into and cuddling this quilt until she is well over to be saying 'I
don't like it' (!)

So, Rainbow
Quilt... done! I am really happy with
the resources that I had available to me:

This is so lovely! Am sure it will be a big hit with the little miss. Very inspiring too - I have some fat quarters to be made into a quilt but as I've never made one before I'm not sure where to start. Think I just need to get on with it.